Difficult times prompt me to pause for friends, happy hour, improvising at the theater, sun drenched walks around the lake, sunburn, petting Hobbes, writing, watching So You Think You Can Dance (which featured a Bollywood piece for the first time tonight!), playing with other people’s babies, hanging clothes to dry outside, watering my garden deeply, driving miles and miles, sleeping very little, wanting to hide under the bed with my cat while the fireworks go off every night, teaching new students, inspiring new parents, speaking in my ‘calm voice,’ bracing myself, making strawberry ice cream from scratch, receiving bath products in the mail for my birthday, smelling like lilac all night long, crying, making egg salad sandwiches for cold lunch, watching my cat dance for tuna, wanting travel so I live vicariously through HD TV, wanting the summer to never end, never slip by, wanting it to stay light out until 10:30pm for the rest of my life, making iced espresso every morning with non-fat half and half, eating lot’s of whole grains, crafting mojitos (all sticky with lime juice), sitting on my front porch late at night looking at the dingy houses nearby, wondering how long I’ll be around, drifting in and out of several books: the sexy Outlander, the obnoxious Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, and the latest issue of the Utne reader, having an equally fascinating and absurd conversation about B’s hair falling out from chemo (’if it wasn’t pulled back right now it would all come out in my hand’), smelling the water from my front door, wondering if I missed the boat on my shade garden bulbs…wondering about all my mistakes, all my misconceptions, learning some hard news, grasping at the complexities, wondering if there’s something greater out there, wondering if maybe tonight I will sleep.